Wherever Mortals Go
by Unsung Heroine
Summary: Because love runs deeper than time… As the years go by, Haleth watches history unfold.


**Summary: **Because love runs deeper than time… As the years go by, Haleth watches history unfold.

**Disclaimer: **Don't own Haleth, don't own Caranthir. But I do own a computer to write even more depressing stories! Yay!

**Note: **While in my other stories it was merely a question of interpretation, this one can be thoroughly considered AU. Moreover, it has a very, very loose grasp on ME metaphysics. I simply _needed _to write down what would be Haleth's thoughts on FA history and this was the way I chose to do it.

**Warning: **This here is very sappy, very sad, very depressive. You better get your tissues out _now_. It may sound vain to say something like this about my own story but it made me cry when I wrote it and I felt depressed the whole day afterwards.

Also, Haleth's view of Caranthir may be very one-sided, kind of glossed-over, but I do not intend to analyze their relationship in any way with this story. This will be the task of _"Enchantress"_, another one-shot from her POV, that I'm still working on. So you see, I cannot let go of the both of them yet. There'll be actually two fics more (_"Enchantress"_ and another one that is not yet named). Be so free to tell me when it gets boring. I tend to forget that not necessarily everybody shares my private obsessions and these two just won't shut up. ;)

* * *

**Wher****ever Mortals Go**

It may sound strange, but I have been watching him from whatever you call this place mortals go, watching him all the time. I saw him fall in the Enchanted Woods; I saw him bleed to death all alone and wished I could have been there to comfort him when pleasant memories of green meads beneath the mountains and golden sunlight in Thargelion's woodlands suddenly turned painful. I would have wept back then, if I still would have been able to do so, and never ceased.

During all my life I used to struggle with the question if I ever really loved him or if it was all but the dream of that young mortal woman I used to be, a dream condemned to wither away just like my fierce beauty would in the course of time, floating away like flower petals on a summer breeze. But as I watched history unfold I was sometimes shocked to see how deep my love really ran. Deeper than time. So deep in fact, that from time to time it hurt. For I felt young again (if one could still speak about _feeling_, that is) and it pained me to see him, who was not supposed to do so grow old as the years passed.

Physically, of course, he remained the same, his youthful, graceful self, but his eyes… I could hardly bear to look into these eyes sometimes.

I saw them filled with despair the day he lost Thargelion, as I watched him looking back one last, painful time, before finally wheeling his horse around to head South to Ereb. Anger filled me then and I wished to still have hands to wield a sword or draw the bowstring to fight fiercely for every inch of land that they took from him, to avenge every tiny bit of hurt they afflicted upon him. But all I could do was watch.

I beheld the fountain in the courtyard crumble beneath the weight of time and my mind traveled back to starlit nights without a moon when I tread barefooted upon cold stone-tiles, wrapped in nothing but bed-sheets to wake up covered in blankets that still smelled like him. I remembered sun-drenched mountain slopes and my restless spirit, never content, ever striving for more and the fancy of ruling lands that were my own. And ever I watched.

I watched him fight his futile battles; I saw him return half-dead and while he slowly recovered I beheld him steadily gazing North from Dolmed with sorrowful, longing glances to the wastelands that used to be Thargelion and sometimes, but only sometimes, West to where two rivers joined and two worlds clashed what seemed ages ago.

I began to wish that I had never crossed the mountains to see the wonders beyond; the steep wall of Rerir and the dark depths of Helevorn, never met him at all appearing like a ray of light amidst the ruins of my life. I began to wish I had dragged him off with me into the forest and never let him out again, like Thingol and Melian, ruling a woodland realm together if only for a few score years. And we would not be Sindarin King and Maia Goddess, but a Prince of the Noldor lost in the wilds and the orphaned heir of the chieftain of a once nomadic people; a love to rival Beren and Luthien's, one that songs would be sung about and perhaps… only perhaps we might move Ilúvatar as much as to grant us both to go together wherever it is mortals go. I would have kept him from all of this, if only I could.

For I watched him stand over my grave that is now but the memory of a memory, not knowing whether to cry or not and found myself wishing to feel the cold winds that ruled the heights of the forest blowing through my hair once more as I emerged from the trees to greet him and make him smile his rare smile for me again. And then… then I would tell him that I love him. But this was all but a dream, for never in my lifetime did he come to Brethil and confined to watch I was not able to save him from his doom.

And so I watched him fall, there in the Enchanted Woods that hold enchantment no longer and my soul ached for him and still it does, but one hope yet remains:

That one day, you will be healed of all your hurts and walk once more beneath the eaves of Orome's woods in Eldamar where the trees grow tall to meet heaven. And then I will watch you there, Feanorion, from whatever you call this place mortals go, and my heart will reach out for you in love.

* * *

Thanks for reading!


End file.
